


i could hold you for a million years

by mogarsgav



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Borderlands 3 Spoilers, Borderlands: Borderlands 3, M/M, Mutual Pining, Nonbinary Character, Tales From the Borderlands, i'm assuming i don't need to tag tales spoilers if you're here, the characters look like a mess i know this, this is just rhys is a pining dumbass the fic, you can pry nb lorelei and zer0 from my cold dead hands
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:02:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25460596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mogarsgav/pseuds/mogarsgav
Summary: The first time Rhys thinks of the term "in love", they're in a caravan packed with people who either actively want them dead or have tried to kill them already, on their way to who-knows-where that could possibly mean their doom. He thinks that maybe now isn't the best time to bring it up, and he'll save it for the next time they're in a safe place.He doesn't know it yet, but that won't be for a very, very long time.
Relationships: Rhys/Vaughn (Borderlands)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16





	1. i've known it from the moment that we met

**Author's Note:**

> the timeline is a little wacky because i'm not very explicit about it, so let me sort of lay it out here
> 
> this starts during episode 3 of tales, around the caravan ride towards the atlas biodome, and stretches through to episode 5 and the time between the split and the reunion (which i set up as just being about 6 months), and even further still into borderlands 3.  
> this was all a 1am whim idea
> 
> title is from make you feel my love (specifically the sleeping at last cover, if you wanna listen along)

Rhys likes Vaughn. That’s something he's been aware of since they were 17 and he first started realizing he likes guys, too. Vaughn likes Rhys. That’s something he's been aware of since they were 22 and kissed before passing out drunk on their couch. Neither of them have said anything about it since, and Rhys is pretty sure neither of them ever will. The risk of ruining their life-long friendship just doesn't seem worth it to him, even in the face of almost-30-and-still-single. He knows (thinks) it's just a crush driven by their constant proximity to each other - it'll go away eventually, and most certainly won't grow into anything more. Right?

They've stopped, for a reason Rhys doesn't remember - or maybe never even knew, he's stopped paying a lot of attention to menial things - and Vaughn is taking the chance to stretch his legs outside the caravan with Sasha. For now, it's just he and Fiona inside and although they're not nearly as tense as they used to be, it's still a little weird. For a bit, he's just taking in the silence that comes with a nearly empty vehicle and it seems like she is too. It almost makes him jump when she breaks it.

"So. You and Vaughn, huh?"

Straight to the worst possible point, in true Fiona fashion, he figures. There's a beat where he hopes maybe she'll believe he's asleep, but when he cracks an eye open, he sees her staring directly at him. Right.

"What about us?"

"You two are like... a thing, right?"

Rhys' sputtering is enough of an answer on its own (and enough to make her laugh). But it's the look on his face after that makes her hesitate in her push to tease him, because she had no idea it was that serious. She's a little worried she's opened a can of worms she doesn't really want to deal with, but Rhys is her friend, so she will.

"I don't-- we're not... It's not like that. He's not into me." He's hyper-aware of Jack lurking in the back of his mind, always waiting for something, someone, some word that he can use to fuck with him later. He really doesn't want to give it to him, so he refuses to explicitly say that although Vaughn isn't into him, he's _very_ into Vaughn and has been for a full decade (and doesn't that sound old that way? A decade sounds so much bigger than just ten years). "I kind of _wish_ he was, but we've been bros for years. That's not something you just.. throw away for a relationship that might not work out." Another beat, and, "assuming we even make it out of this vault business alive to _have_ a relationship."

Fiona huffs out a laugh at his whining, and he smiles. It's good to have somebody that won't take him seriously over it and will tell him they're going to be fine. He still has no plans to move forward, but... at least someone else knows now.

* * *

The first time Rhys thinks of the term "in love,” they're in a caravan packed with people who either actively want them dead or have tried to kill them already, on their way to who-knows-where that could possibly mean their doom, and someone has just told a joke that has Vaughn rolling. His laugh, he realizes with an awful start, is one of his favorite sounds in the whole universe. He'd do anything to hear it every day, to see the smile that always accompanies it and hear the way he wheezes a little when he's laughing a little too hard. A smile of his own breaks out across his face, and he can't help it. He doesn't even want to fight it, even when he can feel Fiona's eyes on him and he can only imagine the smug look on her face. Rhys Strongfork is in love with his best friend, and he can't bring himself to be upset about it.

He thinks that maybe now isn't the best time to bring it up, and he'll save it for the next time they're in a safe place. Whenever that will be. He dreams, later that night, of being safe on Helios again and holding Vaughn in his arms. It's the best sleep he's had in ages.

* * *

The next time he thinks about it, they're halfway to Helios and Vaughn is long gone. Telling him to run hurt him, somewhere deep in his chest. He promised to come and find him when the dust settled, but now, as he straps in to head back to a place he once called home, he’s starting to wonder how much he might have accidentally lied. There’s no way for him to know, not until they’re done here, but the idea of never seeing Vaughn again sends him into a shaking fit that he tries desperately to hide.

The keyword there is “try.” Sasha notices the second they’re out of orbit and everyone starts moving. He feels her eyes lock on him, the way he fights the lock on his harness because his hands are trembling, the frustrated face he makes after a second, and she comes over to help. His mumbled “thanks” is either gone unheard or brushed off as she looks at him, this weird pity in her eyes.

It’s not a look that suits her, if he’s totally honest.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

That brings her eye-roll, and he’s a little more comfortable with that look. “Because you’re clearly not okay, but it is _so_ hard to talk to you when you look like that.”

Belatedly, he remembers he looks like Vasquez again, and he makes another face. “Right. Yeah. I don’t want to take it off, in case--”

She cuts him off with a quick “yeah, I know” before looking at him expectantly. It takes him a second to realize she’s waiting for him to tell her what’s wrong, and he just sort of laughs and shakes his head when he does. There’s people in here that he doesn’t necessarily want to talk about it all in front of, but…

“It’s Vaughn.” The look on her face doesn’t change much, although it softens just a little. He doesn’t like it. “I’m worried about him, you know? I know he’s resourceful, and he’s an adult. He can handle it. But not having him here, not knowing how he is... it’s stressful.” Pandora is a rough place. They both know that, and Vaughn... might not be suited for it. He almost wishes he had told him to stay, _convinced_ him to stay, just so he could know if he’s okay or not.

“He’s a big boy, Rhys. He can take care of himself. Besides, you’ll see him again soon enough. We’ll get done with this whole vault business, and we’ll go find him, and you two can go back home or... do whatever it is you plan on doing.”

It’s not exactly perfect comfort, and he can see her grimace at herself a bit, but it works. Sort of. He feels a little better knowing they’re going to work together to find him when this is all over. He’s got a friend in both Fiona and Sasha, and everything will work out fine.

This is something he’s sure of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> big huge thanks to prettyboyrollins for beta'ing/helping me format this. ily ur the best
> 
> if you enjoyed this please leave a kudos and/or a comment <3  
> if you'd like to get up with me to talk borderlands or anything else that crosses your mind, my social medias are @cmpnyman (twitter and tumblr) and @exexlover (instagram). i promise i'm super down to just talk about anything ever.
> 
> thanks for reading!


	2. the storms are raging on the rolling sea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's a THICC chapter. it's mostly just.. rhys being sad and lonely. sorry for that fellas

When Rhys comes to, he’s not sure where he is or what’s going on. It was night when he passed out, he’s pretty sure, and it’s night again. Or maybe it’s the same night - he doesn’t know anymore. All he knows is his vision is wrong and his whole right side aches and burns. If he listens closely, he imagines he can actually hear the crackling of the ripped wires still receiving data from his brain.

Oh, right. He tore his arm off. Among other things.

He blinks a couple times, trying to adjust to only having one eye as he stares at the gaudy yellow build of his arm. This isn’t where he should be. This isn’t what he should be doing. It’s _dangerous_ and he’s _alone_ and **_oh, god_ **.

He has to get up. He has to move, to try and find someone before it’s too late. He calls out, yelling for Fiona, but his voice fails. He clears his throat. Tries again. What comes out is a weak estimation of her name, broken and falling from him like a cry.

She’s probably long gone, anyway. The both of them. He’s alone and hurting with no way to get around and no home ( **_fuck, he destroyed his own home, he killed so many people, what’s wrong with him_ **).

It takes a few tries to get a good grip on what was once Jack’s desk (the thought of Jack makes his stomach twist and his head turn. No more of that.) to pull himself up, and the sudden change makes his vision swim. He has to go... somewhere. He can’t stay here forever, in the wreckage of what once held his dreams and his future. One day, this will all be no more than a bad dream that can’t hurt him - but right now, Rhys needs to get out and get as far away as he can. He can’t stand staring at what he’s done; to himself, to everyone at Hyperion, to _Vaughn_.

Oh, god, Vaughn. He promised him he’d come back for him. How long has it been since he’s said that? A few hours? Days? Weeks, even? He doesn’t know how long he’s been out, and it’s so hard to focus on anything that isn’t the pain and the nausea it induces.

His first few steps are hard. The hardest he’s ever taken, he thinks. He’s off balance and wobbly and trying not to trip over broken beams and glass and into electrical fires. His only thought is to get out, out, somewhere, anywhere but here. It takes a couple minutes before he’s in a safe area, just outside of the wreckage, before he’s starting to get his balance back. He doesn’t know how he’s going to make it across Pandora with one arm and half his vision, defenseless and alone, but he does know he has to. He can’t stay here forever and wallow.

It’s only once he’s out that he realizes he’d grabbed the deed to Atlas.

At a certain point of walking, time becomes sort of meaningless. Most of Pandora looks the same, and the day-night cycles are hard to count when he’s in and out of consciousness. After what he can only assume was a week of dodging bandits and crashing in whatever few benevolent settlements he came across, he realizes he’s been stumbling in the direction of the only close place he could think of in whatever state he’s been in recently.

By the time he reaches Old Haven, his pain has subsided to bone-deep aches instead of constant striking waves, and he’s able to start thinking fully again - mostly about what he’s going to do if the place is occupied by more psychos, or bandits, or worse. He isn’t quite sure what could be worse than skags or bandits, but he’s certain Pandora has something in store.

With clear thoughts comes Vaughn.

Almost immediately, he’s hit with a gut-wrenching combination of guilt and anger. He promised Vaguhn he’d go find him. That was what he’d used to make him feel better about leaving. Now, he’d walked himself ragged to get to Old Haven, and not once did he ask any sane person that he encountered if they’d seen anyone. Fiona and Sasha had abandoned him, and he’d abandoned the best person in his life.

Some best friend he is, huh? He scoffs out loud, although there’s no one around to hear it or even know why he’s doing it.

Getting back into the facility is easy - it was left open from the last time, and he’s able to dodge the few stragglers in the little town. What _isn’t_ easy is having to see the (admittedly pretty gross) bodies leftover from their attempt. Most of them have been cleared out - whether by psychos or local wildlife, he doesn’t really want to know - but a couple are left, and he spends what daylight he has dragging them out and to somewhere he won’t have to worry very much about them.

For a while, he spends his time trying to adjust to fending for himself on a planet he doesn’t know that constantly seems ready to kill him. Once he’s explored the facility a little more thoroughly, he’s able to find what he needs to start rebuilding himself. He needs to put his body back into order before he can even think about reviving Atlas. It’s not easy going - he’s not the best with hardware; he’s always been better with software, so the actual programming doesn’t bother him much, once he gets there - and he’s not left handed, so it’s painstakingly slow progress on his new arm. He shocks himself more than once, and by the time he puts the final cover on it (a good two months later - he’s gotten better at telling time from the cycles without a solid clock), his left hand is covered in burn marks and mostly numb in his fingertips. It’s the price he pays, he figures, for being so reckless with himself. Even if it _did_ get rid of Jack once and for all.

Thinking about Jack still hurts, but it hurts less than thinking about his friends. About his _friend_ , about Vaughn. It’s easier to think about _him_ and get angry at the way things turned out for the worst than it is to fight the pain from crying over Vaughn.

The nights are the hardest. It’s impossible to sleep anymore, without his general presence. He’d gotten so damn used to living with him that just a couple months without him have him spiraling into this awful state of being unable to care for himself well enough. He gets a couple hours, if he’s lucky, and even those are fitful and sandwiched between thoughts of whether or not he’s dead. Whether or not he’s somewhere out there, waiting for him still, thinking of him.

… That one hurts a little bit more than him being dead.

Reattaching his arm is easier than he’d thought it would be. It’s still hard, of course, but so much easier than he ever anticipated. It’s not perfect - it seizes up sometimes, and if he moves it too much or too fast at the socket, it shocks him. But he’s a one man department with no experience using old Atlas parts. Given his circumstances, he thinks he did pretty damn good for a working arm. The rest comes easier, now that he has two hands again - recreating and replacing his ECHOeye (something he needs to come up with a new name for, considering Hyperion has that trademarked, even if it’s collapsed), fixing his port. By the time he’s done and put back together, he feels like he should be a qualified surgeon and engineer.

The next step is rebuilding Atlas. If he can rebuild himself, he can rebuild anything.

Relief comes some three months later, when he gets contacted by Fiona with coordinates and a meeting time. It makes him feel like crying - he’s so glad to hear from her, and seeing her is going to be good, even if they’re not on the best terms anymore. Seeing _anyone_ would be good, really. He’s been stuck in this old building so long, he’s pretty sure he’s forgotten how to speak.

He doesn’t really count on having to retell the entire painstaking tale of their adventure. He doesn’t count on having to bring up Vaughn and the way he gets choked up the first couple of times. If either of them notice, they say nothing. He prefers it that way.

He _definitely_ doesn’t count on a firing squad that turns out to be fake.

Least of all one that’s led by the man himself.

Seeing Vaughn again feels like seeing a ghost. Rhys could simultaneously cry and kiss him, if he were more conscious of any emotion beyond _holy shit._ Their first hug in almost six months comes with so much more than he thought he was going to have to deal with today, and the way he goes in for a second one sends his heart into a flurry that he isn’t allowed to have. Not anymore.

“I thought you were gone, dude,” is all he gets out when they’re settled for the night (back in what was once Helios, something that makes the pit in his chest spread cold through his whole body) before he can feel regret crawling up from his chest. He clears his throat, tries again. “I thought... I thought you were dead. When I woke up, I was alone, and I was scared.”

Vaughn spares him from digging himself a hole with a smile and a shake of his head. “No, I get it. I... we thought you were dead, too. I found your arm in Jack’s old office while I was looking for any more survivors. Didn’t find any sign of _you.”_

The thought that he could’ve been spared six months of turmoil and loneliness had he just stayed put a little longer makes him feel... something. Something negative, that he can’t really place, but _something_. Whatever it is, it feels like a final push in the right direction. He needs to tell him how he feels - how he’s felt for years.

As it turns out, finding privacy with him is nearly impossible. There’s always someone around who wants his or Rhys’ attention, and then they’re on to the vault before he can even take a breath. Everything feels like so much - too much, all the time - but he’s got a rock now. A rock that doesn’t seem to be as into him as it once was, but a rock that he can depend on nonetheless.

His and Fiona’s return from the vault is unceremonious, beyond relief and hugs from Vaughn and Sasha, respectively. Neither of them are completely sure how long they were in there or how far they’d gone, but it was long enough. They were content to stay where they were for a _very_ long time.

Staying on Pandora was easier said than done.

Rhys still can’t sleep, he realizes, even though he knows Vaughn is just minutes away. He’s haunted by the things he’s done, the things he’s seen, and he knows he’s going to stay that way the longer he’s on this hellhole of a planet. He tried giving it a fair shake, and all it’s done is spit in his face in return.

So he decides to leave.

 _Atlas can’t flourish here_ is his main excuse. No one on Pandora is ready for a new company to take hold. Hyperion just came down, and the planet isn’t built for it. Sasha buys it. Fiona sees through it, but she doesn’t call him on it. Whether that’s because she doesn’t care enough or she cares too much, he isn’t totally sure.

Vaughn... is harder to read. He’s upset, he can tell that much. But he’s so much harder to read now, after everything he’s been through. He’s schooled himself and his emotions more than Rhys could ever hope to achieve.

“I’m heading to Promethea. That’s the best chance for Atlas, I think. The best chance for me.” He caps it off with a smile and chastest kiss he can manage, and it’s enough to keep his friend in a startled quiet. “I’ll see you soon. I promise.”

It doesn’t hit him how horrible he is until he’s already landed on his new home.

**Author's Note:**

> big huge thanks to prettyboyrollins for beta'ing/helping me format this. ily ur the best
> 
> if you enjoyed this please leave a kudos and/or a comment <3  
> if you'd like to get up with me to talk borderlands or anything else that crosses your mind, my social medias are @cmpnyman (twitter and tumblr) and @exexlover (instagram). i promise i'm super down to just talk about anything ever.
> 
> thanks for reading!


End file.
